Updated 7.25pm - Parliament postpones statement to tomorrow
Documents related to the transfer of Institute of Tourism Studies land to DB San Ġorġ Property Limited have been published in their entirety, the government said this afternoon.
In a statement, the government said the contract was made public when the agreement was announced last Thursday. This was the first time ever that a contract related to transfers of public land was published immediately, the government said.
Annexes to the contract were now also available for the public to read, the government added (see link below). Earlier this afternoon, the Nationalist Party had listed 14 ancillary documents it said had not yet been published. The documents in question, the PN had said, contained "intrinsic details" about the deal the government had struck with the private contractor.
The PN was not alone in calling for more clarity about the deal. In a statement, Partit Demokratiku leader Marlene Farrugia called on the Prime Minister to make a parliamentary statement about the issue.
In its statement announcing that annexes were now in the public realm, the government contrasted its "transparency" with that of previous administrations, which it said had "even bound future governments from publishing contracts that are still in force to this day".
Last week, the government announced that it had reached a deal to turn former ITS site at St George's Bay into a major residential and commercial hub, replete with a 315-room Hard Rock Hotel, shopping mall and residential units. Developer and DB group head Silvio Debono said that the company would be paying €60 million for the land.
Annexes can be downloaded by clicking here.
Ministerial statement postponed
A ministerial statement on the land transfer will take place tomorrow instead of today, giving the Opposition time to study the documents published.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat accepted the proposal made by Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil, though he resisted pressure to issue the statement himself rather than entrust it to Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi.
“I am the prime minister and I choose who to entrust with the statement,” Dr Muscat said, saying that Dr Mizzi was the best person for the job.
Dr Busuttil had insisted that Dr Mizzi was not the minister responsible for lands and that the Opposition did not recognise him, given that he remained a minister despite having a secret company in Panama.
The Prime Minister said that he would be in the House for the statement and for subsequent questions raised by the Opposition.
Speaker Anġlu Farrugia noted that on June 15, 2016 he had ruled that Dr Mizzi, as a Cabinet minister, had every right to make a ministerial statement.